Noiseless fork-lock railway-rail joint.



G. R. WOOD.

NOISELESS FORK LOOK RAILWAY RAIL 101111. APPLICATION IlILED AUG. 27, 1912.

1,097,279. Patented May 19, 1914.

TYNTTED STATEEd GEORGE E. WOOD, 0F LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA.

NOISELESS FORK-LOCK RAILWAY-RAIL JOINT.

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Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented May'lt), 1914.

Application filed August 27, 1912. Serial No. 717,380.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, GEORGE R. "Wooo, a citizen of the United States, residing at Los Angeles, in the county of Los Angeles and State of California, have invented a new and useful Noiseless Fork-Lock Railway-Rail Joint, of which the following is a specification.

An object of the invention is to provide a railway-rail-joint that can be easily and quickly installed, that will be perfectly tight, straight, true and secure, that will be free from depression under loads, will avoid low joints, that will be noiseless as the wheels cross the joint; that will take care of the expansion while maintaining the above advantages and that will dispense with the necessity of fish plates, bolts and nuts.

The invention includes a new form of railway rail and a new form of joint plate.

The accompanying drawings illustrate the invention.

Figure 1 is a fragmental perspective view illustrating a rail joint constructed in accordance with this invention. Fig. 2 is a fragmental view of the joint members disassembled. Fig. 3 is a broken plan of the three members of the joint disassembled;-

The large arrow indicates the preferred direction of the train. Fig. 4 shows in end elevation the three members of the joint. Fig. 5 is a cross section on line 00 Fig. 1. Fig. 6 is a broken side elevation of the joint. Fig. 7 is a broken plan of a rail constructed in accordance with the invention. Fig. 8 is a fragmental view of a modified form of construction.

The rails are all alike and are provided with complementary ends, one end being cleft, and the other formed to fit the cleft. The rails 1, 2 are laid together end to end and are provided with complementary ends 3, 4, adapted to lock together, when so laid, one of said ends being wedge-shaped and the other correspondingly V-shaped. The thin edge 5 of the wedge fits the point 6 of the V cleft and said cleft extends into the tread 7, the web 8 and the base flanges 9 at one end of each rail and the sides of the wedges extend to the outer edges of the tread, web and base flanges of the rail at the other end. Said base flanges are provided with notches 10 for the spikes 11. The joint plate 12 comprises a flat slotted sleeve fitted to the base flanges and the web, the slot 13 extending along the mid-length and being just so as to allow movement of the rails under the effects of expansion and contraction. The socketed end of the rail is therefore provided with a forked tread, a forked web and a forked base, the forked base and tread projecting beyond the end of the web. The angle of the wedge and seat therefor is very acute in order to provide more perfect union of the two ends and thethin edge of the wedge is vertically arranged being partly formed of part of the web of the rail and extending from the crown of the tread to the bottom of the rail while the cleft extends likewise through the web and from the crown of the tread to the base of the rail.

To install the rails the joint plate will be slid onto one of the ends of one rail and another rail will then be brought into alinement therewith and the two rails brought together with the wedge of one inserted into the V of the other, the joint plate being then brought to position so that the holes through the plate will register with the notches in the base flanges. The spikes 11 will then be driven through the base flanges into the ties 15. Preferably the track will be laid with the V-seat-s at the forward ends of the rails and the rear wedge-shaped ends of the rails will be inserted into the joint plates while the joint plates and the V- shaped ends are in place on the ties. In case of double tracks the rails will be laid with the wedge ends rearward and the fork ends forward, so that the pressure of the wheel flanges, not shown, will always tend to hold the limb of the tread at the V shaped end against the tread of the wedge end. The weight of the wheel is thus never brought abruptly from one rail to the other, the tread of the wheel running on both rails as it crosses any joint.

The joint plate or sleeve has a flat base plate 16, two edge walls 17 and two top wings 18 separated by the slot 13; and also has the spike holes 14 and may be of the usual material for making fish plates and the like. The spike holes 14 pass one half through wall 17 and the other half inside of the wall so as to maximize the bearing value of the spikes 11 in the flange as clearly shown in Fig. 5, in order to produce a strong con struction. The base flange tips may be extended with longitudinal parallel edges 19 as shown in Fig. 8; said tips being inserted into longitudinal notches 20 in the edges of the base flanges 9 of the Wedge-shaped end, so as to give greater strength to the tips of the fork to avoid liability of injury to the rail when the same is being handled. lVhen the spikes are inserted through the holes and notches, the rails are firmly fixed to the sleeve and to each other.

I claim:

A rail joint comprising a flanged rail having a substantially V-shaped cleft and having tips with longitudinal parallel edges to 15 strengthen the ends of the rail at the cleft,

and a flanged rail having a substantially V- GEORGE E. W001).

In. presence of- J AMES R. ToWNsEND, L. BELLE RICE.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents.

Washington, D. C. 

